Aspiring actors attending an assignment accidentally accommodate aggressive antagonistic ambiguous assailants after absolutely avoiding aggregated assumptions.

Written and directed by Bobby Marinelli, Death Cast starts with film auditions introducing the characters and the roles they’re reading for. Once the cast is chosen they start shooting on location with people filming a behind-the-scenes documentary. This is how it ingeniously sets up the found footage style used. In between filming scenes, the actors stay at an isolated home in the woods. While waiting they start getting killed off one by one.

After a while, the actors start destroying the cameras cleverly subverting subgenre expectations. Drones are used for sweeping wide shots to show the beautiful Winnepeg countryside. It takes place during the day but there is no suspense. Movies primarily set in the daytime can be scary when tension is built. It has one good jump scare but that’s not enough to save it. It felt longer than it actually is. At an 80 minute runtime, that’s problematic.

Death Cast has glaring plot holes requiring large leaps in logic like how the killer inexplicably teleports. He’s human. How could he be ahead of someone to jump out and scare them if he was walking behind them moments before? Instead of a scary mask the killer’s face is censored which makes no sense and feels like a missed opportunity to put a face on your brand. The kills aren’t creative, they’re all your standard throat slashes and stabbings. The practical effects are subpar too taking me out of the experience. More of the budget or even possibly time could have gone to that in my opinion. The disappointing conclusion only further sours the experience.

The cast has its shortcomings. They either overact or come across as underwhelming. There’s no happy medium. Lacy Hartselle is Tiffany. She’s so cliché she has final girl written all over her. Andrés Erickson is Gabe. His stubbornness is only outweighed by his foolishness. He spends more time bumbling around rather than being useful. Hedy Nasser is Mallory, one of the smarter ones who wants to get out of there once bodies start piling up. But this is a slasher so they have their reasons not to until it’s too late. Marvin Laviolette is BG. He struggles to protect his castmates as best he can. Unfortunately, his performance isn’t felt because he falls under the underwhelming category mentioned previously.

Overall, I can’t recommend Death Cast because poor writing, directing, and acting do no favours for a strong concept. It started off promising but had it been written with more well-rounded characters to make me care about them I might have found it more enjoyable. Likewise, the writing had structural and pacing issues. Had the script gone through a few more drafts the kinks could have been worked out.

On the plus side it subverts found footage film expectations by being a slasher and having characters wrecking the cameras they come across. These scenes were some of the few that were funny on purpose, and how! And another thing, I do like how the killer’s identity is left ambiguous adding to the adage of nothing is scarier than the unknown. Ultimately, the cons outweigh the pros of Death Cast. I didn’t find it entertaining nor would I watch it again for these reasons. And remember, if your ever invited to a cabin in the woods…. just say no.

4 Out of 10